The New England Patriots took their act on the road this week, teaming up with the Vikings du Minnesota for a pair of joint practices. The challenge turned out to be substantial for the team of head coach Mike Trébel, especially on the offensive side of the ball.
While New England managed to get its punches, mainly day 1, the two-day event as a whole was, for lack of a better term, “won” by the home team. Truebel and his club, on the other hand, are looking for money liners.
Despite the difficulties, it doesn’t take long to find it.
For the Patriots, after all, the two practices presented an invaluable opportunity to bind and learn. While they have already faced Washington commanders for a joint working day last week in Foxborough, the Vikings proved to be a different beast. One man in particular is responsible for this: the defensive coordinator and the long -standing assistant of the Patriots, Brian Flores.
“He tries to create chaos, and I think it’s good for us to see and know,” said the quarter-rear Drake Maye. “Sometimes, at the line, you may not know:” Hey, is this guy, “or are they simply stunning?” So, it’s good for us to see it, and it’s great for us to learn. »»
Flores spent 11 seasons in New England under the head coach Bill Belichick, the last of which as a high-level lieutenant on the defensive side of the ball. That year, in 2018, he helped direct a defense that delivered one of the best performances in the history of the Super Bowl, holding an explosive attack on Los Angeles Rams at only three points. Since then, he has continued to tinker with his defense and make deciphering more difficult.
Maye and the company obtained this first -hand experience this week, and this led to difficult results. While the quarter-arrier himself behaved well, he found himself under a repeated constraint: the offensive line of New England had full hands.
And yet, this unit is also positive in experience.
“It makes you question yourself. It makes you think a little,” said the Defense of Flores’s defense offensive platform. “When you get to the line as an offensive, you want to be able to play quickly. He has a lot of exotic looks and things that you have probably never seen before, and sometimes it makes you play a little slowly. This is what makes this defense take place, and to be able to go out during these two days and be able to get that it was a quality work for us.”
“I think we blocked it when we understood correctly,” added Maye. “I think there are times when they will get us. That’s what he does. “
Hope in New England is that lessons learned these two days can open the way to improving long-term performance. But even given the difficulties, there were concrete positive points beyond the point of view of “precious experience”.
Maye himself, as indicated above, had some encouraging moments given the circumstances-a point of view shared by his head coach after the first day.
“It is easy to go in Blender when you see a lot of these stuff and you rush and transform a less than favorable game into a real S-Torm. I have not seen this,” said Vrabel on Thursday. “I thought he was able to treat. We did not execute all the time, but I saw no panic of him. I thought he had been able to communicate and get the things he wanted and then hit parts because of this. When we blocked it, we were able to play games. ”
In addition to Maye, the Patriots also received positive recruits contributions such as Treveyon Henderson or Efton Chism. In defense, New England pass passes – led by Christian Barmore and Harold Landry – sometimes turned out to be a problem for Minnesota.
At the end of the day, however, all these performances, like those at the other end of the spectrum, must be taken with a grain of salt. As Douglas pointed out, the Large Receiver Douglas pointed out after Thursday’s session, it is always a practice we are talking about.
“It will not be great right now. It is a training camp-we are reading, we meet and we learn each other,” he said.
“If it was in the game, it was then that it is frustrating. But we are in practice. I have the impression that we learn from what we see on a band. We are going to go on this cassette, watch band and correct it. This is a practice where you are not really watching a film on them all week, then playing them. You are really watching a film about how we practice and then go and adjust us. So, once we are going to play and look at this whole week, then become a secondary, once we are going to play and watch this week, then become like a secondary, once, we saw this week and watch all this week, we are going to become a secondary, once, I’m going to have a week and watch this whole week, then he is going to stand this week, we have seen this week. He does that, he does that, then you know. It’s difficult, but it’s practice.
In the end, more than anything, it is perhaps the biggest silver lining out of these two days at TCO Performance Center in Eagan, MN: the learning potential is immense and should have a positive impact on the long-term patriots.
